A role for the retinoblastoma protein as a regulator of mouse osteoblast cell adhesion: implications for osteogenesis and osteosarcoma formation.

ABSTRACT: The retinoblastoma protein (pRb) is a cell cycle regulator inactivated in most human cancers. Loss of pRb function results from mutations in the gene coding for pRb or for any of its upstream regulators. Although pRb is predominantly known as a cell cycle repressor, our data point to additional pRb functions in cell adhesion. Our data show that pRb regulates the expression of a wide repertoire of cell adhesion genes and regulates the assembly of the adherens junctions required for cell adhesion. We conducted our studies in osteoblasts, which depend on both pRb and on cell-to-cell contacts for their differentiation and function. We generated knockout mice in which the RB gene was excised specifically in osteoblasts using the cre-lox P system and found that osteoblasts from pRb knockout mice

SUBMITTER: Sosa-Garcia B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2978706 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature